Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to "stop being the stupid party" and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature the GOP as the party of the rich....

"We've got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything," Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. "We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys."

That would be the same Bobby Jindal who wrote this in June in response to a speech by President Obama:

Thursday's speech was also a speech of class warfare.... President Obama announced ... a class warfare campaign of division. He plans to divide America along class lines, gender lines, party lines, age lines and any other lines he can find....

The president is completely correct when he says this election is a crucial choice between two paths. We must choose between the government path and the private sector Path. We must choose between the European path and the American path.

Louisiana Gov. Bob Jindal, who has vowed to reject the expansion of Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law, charged Tuesday that the president "measures success by how many people are on food stamp rolls and government-run health care."

"I truly believe that President Obama's got -- almost what I believe -- it's almost like an Occupy Wall Street perspective, where he demonizes those that’ve been successful, tries to divide us by class, by region, by whatever will help him win his reelection," Jindal said.

"It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments -- enough of that," Jindal said. "It's not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can't be tolerated within our party. We've also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will sign a "birther bill" if one comes to his desk, though his fellow Republican Gov. Jan Brewer just vetoed such a bill in Arizona....

Two Republicans in Louisiana's House introduced a bill last week that would require presidential candidates to file a sworn affidavit that they were born in the United States, and submit it along with an original or copy of their birth certificate.

On Face the Nation, Jindal tells guest host Chip Reid that even though we should teach our kids at the highest levels of science, it's wrong to "withhold" from them the concept of Intelligent Design.

As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. I want them to see the best data. I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn't created accidentally. I do think that there's a creator. I'm a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Now, the way that he did it, I'd certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don't want them to be--I don't want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness....

This 2012-2013 school year, thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution.... The curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.

...among the dubious, factually incorrect, politically tendentious, and racially and culturally insensitive claims in [voucher school] textbooks are the following:

- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.

- "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."

- "God used the 'Trail of Tears' to bring many Indians to Christ." ...

Yeah, Jindal's the guy you want telling Republicans not to be so extreme, isn't he?